Obama and his lackeys lying and breaking the law. What else is new....Boss Obama procures the release of army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was taken by the Taliban after he just up and left his post in Afghanistan 5 years ago. He does this by trading five top Taliban members who had been held at Guantanamo, and does so in violation of the law, which states that Congress must be given 30 days notice before the release of any prisoners held at Gitmo. Susan Rice, formerly Ambassador to the UN, who was previously seen lying on the Sunday talk shows about Benghazi, for which she was rewarded by Obama by being appointed NSA, goes back on the Sunday talk shows and lies again, saying Bergdahl served with honor and distinction. Soldiers who served with Bergdahl, and had been under a non disclosure agreement while Bergdahl was held, speak out in protest, saying Bergdahl deserted, which is not serving with honor and distinction.Obama flacks push back, with Brandon Friedman (an official at HUD) suggesting that Bergdahl's fellow soldiers are psychopaths. Yeah, the guy who deserted served with honor, while the guys who did fulfilled their service are lying psychopaths...Harry Reid tries to provide cover for Obama claiming he was informed the day before the swap. Now Harry, even if it were so, 1 day is not 30. The law required 30 days. But the next day the Admin says they did not inform anyone.And Boss Obama, he says he would do it again.Why is it so difficult for Obama and his ilk to just tell the truth?

I will be inteested t see what the Democrats do about the primary defeat of the majority leader in the House. Will they make a major push to see if they can elect a Democrat over this person? Since I do not live in Va. I am curious about their chances. In any event, there will be a new Majority leader as you cannot have a first term Member in such a post.

If Cantor stages a write-in campaign, he might split the Republican vote wide enough to allow the Democratic challenger to slip in, but otherwise, I'll assume this seat is still safely in Republican hands.

Interestingly, Prof. Brat was on MSNBC last night, and seemed surprised that he found himself facing policy questions.

Interestingly, Prof. Brat was on MSNBC last night, and seemed surprised that he found himself facing policy questions.

lol, why doe this not surprise me?

When he started to get actual, you know, "Questions", he made some comments about how he thought he was just invited on to be "celebratory", so he could thank his supporters. Then he was asked questions about the minimum wage, and he mumbled through a response in which he said that "wages should be tied to productivity", and then said he didn't have a 'well crafted" answer to the question, which I thought was a bit odd, since as an ECONOMICS PROFESSOR and REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, you'd think subjects like the Minimum Wage would be the sort of thing he'd be extremely prepared to discuss.

old toby wrote:Translation: "There hasnt been time to get my official Fox News approved talking point packet (with Ham Rove seal of approval TM patent pending), from the Koch brothers yet"

That's probably the heart of it, toby. He hasn't been briefed yet on what positions to avoid, and God help the guy who goes off message.

I feel badly for him, a little bit, because I've been in that situation, where I had to be spokesperson for an organization where all the top people had equally vehement and unresolved opposing opinions about what policy we should present to the public. There you are with the mic in your face. He got his first lesson, anyway: don't go onstage until you've learned your lines.

The Nameless Thing wrote:And earlier today, Hilary noted the Abraham Lincoln was a senator form Illinois before becoming president. She is obviously completely incompetent and should be dismissed as a viable candidate.

"We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt," Clinton told Sawyer, referring to the hefty legal fees incurred during their White House years. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy."

Legal fees? Incurred in some part by perjurer, adulterer, serial sexual harasser, rapist and Democrat hero, former president Bill Clinton?Must have been just horrible, what with Terry McCauliffe loaning you 1.35 mil for a house in Chappaqua, your 8 million dollar book advance, the 10 or 12 million dollar book advance and the millions in speaking fees Billy Jeff was getting,,,

She added, "Bill has worked really hard -- and it's been amazing to me -- he's worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts, which was, you know, he had to make double the money because of obviously taxes and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members."

I'm not sure why we were discussing this in this thread, but here's a different take on the Cantor defeat. I had read it was all about immigration and the Tea Party, but this paints a more hopeful picture (excerpt):

“All of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone to jail.”

That isn’t a quote from an Occupy Wall Street protester or Senator Elizabeth Warren. That’s a common campaign slogan repeated by Dave Brat, the Virginia college professor who scored one of the biggest political upsets in over a century by defeating Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary last night.

The national media is buzzing about Brat’s victory, but for all of the wrong reasons.

Did the Tea Party swoop in and help Brat, as many in the Democratic Party are suggesting? Actually, the Wall Street Journal reports no major Tea Party or anti-establishment GOP group spent funds to defeat Cantor. Did Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, lose because of his religion, as some have suggested? There’s no evidence so far of anti-Semitism during the campaign. Was Cantor caught flatfooted? Nope; Cantor’s campaign spent close to $1 million on the race and several outside advocacy groups, including the National Rifle Association, the National Realtors Association and the American Chemistry Council (a chemical industry lobbying association) came in and poured money into the district to defeat Brat. The New York Times claims that Brat focused his campaign primarily on immigration reform. Brat certainly made immigration a visible topic in his race, but Republic Report listened to several hours of Brat stump speeches and radio appearances, and that issue came up far less than what Brat called the main problem in government: corruption and cronyism.

Cerin wrote:I'm not sure why we were discussing this in this thread, but here's a different take on the Cantor defeat:

That is very easily explained. You see up above there were posts criticizing your party members, as is on topic for this thread. Your compatriots don't like that, so they start hand waving and try to change the subject from Democrats to Republicans in this thread, instead of using the thread dedicated to Republicans. Minardil in particular, if you review the thread, does this repeatedly.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year.

The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.

Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups.

Cerin wrote:I'm not sure why we were discussing this in this thread, but here's a different take on the Cantor defeat:

That is very easily explained. You see up above there were posts criticizing your party members, as is on topic for this thread. Your compatriots don't like that, so they start hand waving and try to change the subject from Democrats to Republicans in this thread, instead of using the thread dedicated to Republicans. Minardil in particular, if you review the thread, does this repeatedly.

All threads tend to wander and blurr, and as much as Heretic feels that any opinions which differ from his should be treated as either signs of mental disease or a criminal act, and as much as he would like to censor everyone's speech to conform to his own opinions, he is neither Dictator nor Moderator. So, to heck with him.

Minardil wrote:All threads tend to wander and blurr, and as much as Heretic feels that any opinions which differ from his should be treated as either signs of mental disease or a criminal act, and as much as he would like to censor everyone's speech to conform to his own opinions, he is neither Dictator nor Moderator. So, to heck with him.

Minardil, naturally, can not back up his assertions about what he pretends I feel or would like to do. But being the utterly dishonest person he is, that is not to be unexpected.

Is there a personal attack fairy who can infect only one person at a time on these threads? And, with the absence of C_G, has it now fastened on Heretic?That would be a shame.We can discuss all manner of points of view, but personal attacks accomplish nothing.

It is easier to ignore a personal attack (read: give it the 0 attention it deserves).

Hillary and her husband former president, Democrat hero, and rapist, serial sexual harasser and perjurer Bill Clinton, have long favored high death taxes. But being Democrats they mean that only for other people, and not for themselves:

Wealthy Clintons Use Trusts to Limit Estate Tax They BackBill and Hillary Clinton have long supported an estate tax to prevent the U.S. from being dominated by inherited wealth. That doesn’t mean they want to pay it.

To reduce the tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial planning strategies befitting the top 1 percent of U.S. households in wealth. These moves, common among multimillionaires, will help shield some of their estate from the tax that now tops out at 40 percent of assets upon death.

There are still too many unanswered questions about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday, even as she welcomed the capture of a suspected mastermind of the assaults.

“There are answers, not all of them, not enough, frankly,” she said of the September 2012 attacks on a diplomatic and CIA compound that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others.

“I’m still looking for answers, because it was a confusing and difficult time,” Clinton said.

Her remarks, delivered during a CNN interview in Washington to promote her new book, appeared to lend credence to a central claim by Republicans that there is more to learn about the Benghazi tragedy. The Obama administration has said that after multiple investigations, there is little new to say about the attacks.

Heretic feels that any opinions which differ from his should be treated as either signs of mental disease or a criminal act, and as much as he would like to censor everyone's speech to conform to his own opinions,

Nope, he is unable to provide anything from me saying differing opinions are a sign of mental disease or a criminal act or that I would censor everyone's speech to conform to my opinion.Considering his party, a severe case of projection on his part.“We cannot let a minority of people hold a viewpoint that terrorizes a majority of people.”

Not spotting the ISIS invasion of Iraq was amajor "miss" for the Admin. I am posting this same message in both the Republican and Deocratic threads, because both have people on the Intelligence Committees and why did no one raise the issue?There is blame for the media, too. The media fasten their attention on one story, and nothing else gets heard. Possibly, not everyone was surprised, but it looks like it.

portia wrote:Not spotting the ISIS invasion of Iraq was amajor "miss" for the Admin. I am posting this same message in both the Republican and Deocratic threads, because both have people on the Intelligence Committees and why did no one raise the issue?There is blame for the media, too. The media fasten their attention on one story, and nothing else gets heard. Possibly, not everyone was surprised, but it looks like it.

I agree, this invasion seems to be moving with blitzkrieg speed. But as it originated in chaotic Syria, I'm wondering how much we really knew about this group before they moved into Iraq? And with no forces in that country - due to the withdrawal agreement signed by President Bush in 2008, and the lack of a Status of Forces Agreement which forced President Obama to remove all troops from the country - I'm not sure what we could do there, apart from Airstrikes.

portia wrote:Not spotting the ISIS invasion of Iraq was amajor "miss" for the Admin. I am posting this same message in both the Republican and Deocratic threads, because both have people on the Intelligence Committees and why did no one raise the issue?There is blame for the media, too. The media fasten their attention on one story, and nothing else gets heard. Possibly, not everyone was surprised, but it looks like it.

I agree, this invasion seems to be moving with blitzkrieg speed. But as it originated in chaotic Syria, I'm wondering how much we really knew about this group before they moved into Iraq? And with no forces in that country - due to the withdrawal agreement signed by President Bush in 2008, and the lack of a Status of Forces Agreement which forced President Obama to remove all troops from the country - I'm not sure what we could do there, apart from Airstrikes.

Which Obama didn't do.

It's also kind of funny to see Bush being accused of withdrawing troops from Iraq, after all the years of demands for exactly that. Obama gladly took credit for the withdrawal back in 2011, by the way, proclaiming that he was "leaving behind a stable and self-reliant Iraq".

More importantly, thought, the major "miss" (or rather, another monumental foreign policy screw-up which by now is routine) for the Obama administration is failing to realize that on its own, the Iraqi army is about as battleworthy as the Ukrainian one. The reason ISIS is moving so fast is because they're not encountering much opposition except from the Kurds.

So far, Obama's idea of solution appears to be asking Iran to step in and take Iraq under it's wings, presumably in exchange for more American flexibility on Iranian nukes.

"...Their aim in war with Germany is nothing more, nothing less than extermination of Hitlerism... There is absolutely no justification for this kind of war. The ideology of Hitlerism, just like any other ideological system, can be accepted or rejected, this is a matter of political views. But everyone grasps, that an ideology can not be exterminated by force, must not be finished off with a war.” - Vyacheslav Molotov, ""On the Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union", 31 October 1939

The core principal is that a country needs to be able to take care of its own defense. Something an Israeli--of all people-- should understand. And another principal that Israelis should understand: There are a lot of non-jews in israel who need to be remembered, or there could be a similar sitution of internal non-support.

in 2011 Iraq had a chance to be stable, but not running a government for all the people does tend to undermine that chance (something the Ukrainians haven't understood, either).

As many office holders in the US (NOT all, unfortunately) have stated: "I was elected to be the (fill in the blank) of all the people."

It's also kind of funny to see Bush being accused of withdrawing troops from Iraq

I am not "accusing" Mr. Bush of withdrawing troops, merely reminding those currently demanding action in Iraq that it isn't Mr. Obama's fault (alone) that we don't have forces there now.

More importantly, thought, the major "miss" (or rather, another monumental foreign policy screw-up which by now is routine) for the Obama administration is failing to realize that on its own, the Iraqi army is about as battleworthy as the Ukrainian one. The reason ISIS is moving so fast is because they're not encountering much opposition except from the Kurds.

So, just to be clear, you now want the US to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, and to stage a full-scale re-invasion of Iraq.

It's also kind of funny to see Bush being accused of withdrawing troops from Iraq

I am not "accusing" Mr. Bush of withdrawing troops, merely reminding those currently demanding action in Iraq that it isn't Mr. Obama's fault (alone) that we don't have forces there now.

How can that be? Since Obama claimed the credit for it, why is it not his fault alone? And since Obama is now saying it is all Maliki's fault, how can it be anyone else's fault?Unless Obama was lying, both when he was claiming credit for the withdrawal and when he is blaming Maliki?

And who are those that are currently demanding action that you are reminding?

portia wrote:The core principal is that a country needs to be able to take care of its own defense. Something an Israeli--of all people-- should understand.

Except Iraq's army was supposed to be rebuilt by the US. A country whose army has recently been wrecked and hasn't been properly rebuilt can hardly be faulted for failing to defend itself.

And another principal that Israelis should understand: There are a lot of non-jews in israel who need to be remembered, or there could be a similar sitution of internal non-support.

I'm not even going to comment about the degree of ignorance about the inner workings of Israel specifically that this comment shows. The degree to which you don't understand how nations in general work is just plain astounding.

in 2011 Iraq had a chance to be stable, but not running a government for all the people does tend to undermine that chance (something the Ukrainians haven't understood, either).

As many office holders in the US (NOT all, unfortunately) have stated: "I was elected to be the (fill in the blank) of all the people."

You need to have a people first though. Has there ever been an Iraqi nation in the Westphalian sense?

"...Their aim in war with Germany is nothing more, nothing less than extermination of Hitlerism... There is absolutely no justification for this kind of war. The ideology of Hitlerism, just like any other ideological system, can be accepted or rejected, this is a matter of political views. But everyone grasps, that an ideology can not be exterminated by force, must not be finished off with a war.” - Vyacheslav Molotov, ""On the Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union", 31 October 1939